


Humility

by Moss_Flowers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Humans are enslaved, Like Underfell but above ground, Monsters won the war, Profanity, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, a girl being on her period, crawling insects, i dunno tell me in the comments, overfell, slave AU, so some biological grossness, what would you call that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:16:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6947170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moss_Flowers/pseuds/Moss_Flowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long ago, there was a war between humans and monsters.</p><p>The humans lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DandelionSea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DandelionSea/gifts).



> Inspired by DandelionSea's lovely fic [Bought and Sold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5803051/chapters/13374250)!

You’re broken. 

You’re such a useless slave. You’re too weak for any sort of manual labor, too ugly to be used for what girl slaves are usually used for, and too sterile to be used for breeding. 

You’ve slowly been losing the ability to see. 

You’re useless. 

You keep your unfocused eyes trained on the ground, where you can just make out the blurred ovals of your feet. You stand, hands clasped behind your back to keep the chains from clinking, silent and obedient. 

You’re too exhausted for anything else. 

You long to slump, to sit down, but there’s no room, not with all of you packed in like animals in a pen. You’ve been passed from slaver to slaver, sometimes with others, sometimes not, someone always trying to get a little more for you than they paid. The markets are awful, awful places of death and separation and despair and suffering, but at least… 

At least you are quiet, and easily overlooked. 

Many are not so lucky. 

It is said, in hushed whispers, that this was not always so. That once humans and monsters lived together in peace. 

Then, the war. 

Usually, the monsters use this as an excuse to list why humans are inferior. Humans are violent. Humans cannot be trusted. Humans war with their own, are incapable of civilization on their own. Humans betrayed the monsters, and this is the price they must pay. Monsters, out of the goodness of their hearts, are just benevolently caring for humankind. It is only just that humans work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. It is a mercy that humans are kept alive at all, when by rights they should all have been slaughtered. 

The hushed whispers say otherwise. They say that in the war, the monsters changed. Once kind and gentle creatures were overcome with rage. 

It was their cruelty that won them the war, all those years ago. 

Enough musing, it is your turn. You respond without a word to the harsh jerk on the chain connected to your metal collar, biting back a whimper at the pain. You’re so fragile, you always blister wherever the metal touches your skin, but there is nothing you can do about it. 

You are led roughly to the auction stand, doing your best not to trip. You know that if you fall, you will not be able to catch yourself, with your hands bound behind you, so you scurry unsteadily behind the monster. 

Once you are on the stand, the monster leaves you, and the announcer lists what few attributes you possess to the crowd. 

You keep your eyes trained on your feet. Obedient. Passive. You give no reason for anyone to punish you. 

You are unable to stop the flinch when your soul is roughly bared before the crowd. You are ashamed of it, a dim, pale blue grey streaked with cracks of a sickly green. You don’t know exactly what it means, humans don’t willingly show their souls to each other, but from the reaction you always get from monsters you are sure it must be terrible. Your cheeks flush with shame. 

The announcer starts the bid at a depressingly low number. It is the starting bid for the elderly, for invalids, for humans that are more a burden than an asset. 

No one bids.

He lowers the price.

Still no bids.

Tears slowly trail down your face. As bad as it is to be a slave, it’s worse to be a slave nobody wants. 

45g. It is a desperate sum, a sum that says, “this human is not worth the cost to house and feed it, you’d be doing us a favor to take it off our hands.” 

Your eyes are closed and you are trembling. You don’t want to go back to the pen with the other rejected slaves, but you feel rather foolish for hoping that this would have gone any other way. 

Your eyes open in shock when you hear the announcer proclaim, “Going once! Going twice!” Someone must have bid! You long to flick your eyes to the crowd, to catch a glimpse of your new owner, but you know your eyes are too bad for you to be able to tell and anyway, “Sold!” is already echoing through the marketplace. 

“To the gentleman with the gold tooth!” 

Huh. 

You offer no resistance when you are dragged off the stand, hope flaring in your chest. Maybe, just maybe, it won’t be another slaver! Excited possibilities are running through your mind the entire way to the pick-up pen. He has a gold tooth. What if he’s rich? What does he want you to do? Whatever it is, you will do your best, no matter what. What if he’s mean, what if he beats you? It’s still better than the slave pen, still better than life caged in chains. You’re useless, if he beats you it’s nothing more than you deserve. 

You try not to give any outward sign of your excitement, your eyes are still downcast and no smile touches your lips, but it feels as though your soul is lighter. 

A wonderful half hour goes by where you wait patiently for your new master to collect you. Another hour. Two. Your excitement has dulled slightly into acceptance, but you really don’t mind the wait. You are used to waiting, it’s comfortable. Familiar. You are settled in: you know they never tell the slaves anything, but you’ve seen that sometimes it takes a day or two to be picked up so the master can arrange transportation. No one wants a dirty slave smelling up their nice car. 

Your master has a gold tooth. You bet his car is really fancy. 

You tell yourself you shouldn’t get your hopes up. You tell yourself he’s probably a slaver who couldn’t resist the 45g price tag, who plans on doing something to you to make you more valuable, somehow. You’ve had a few owners like that, ones who wanted to test some sort of product on you, though it never seemed to work. 

You can’t explain the good feeling you have. 

Even though you don’t look at anything and keep your eyes trained on the ground like a good slave, you can hear when the guards change their shifts, and their conversations let you know that they move around every hour, to give them their mandated breaks. Three hours after you were on the auction stand, your chain is unclasped from the stand and you are led out of the cage to your waiting master. 

You don’t look directly at him, of course. You want to make a good first impression, and good girl slaves are demure and obedient and never, ever look a monster in the eyes as though they are equals. 

They exchange money and papers, and you are led away by your new master. In the security of knowing he is facing forward while leading you, you chance a quick glance up before looking down again. 

He is black, and red, and white. His silhouette is blurred in your cursedly poor vision, but you’re pretty sure the black and red are his clothes, and that he is white. Black and red are very popular colors for monsters to wear. 

Even though you have no idea what sort of monster he is, or what he looks like really, you tell yourself he is handsome. He is your master, and to consider him anything else would be disrespectful. 

He leads you to a waiting car. It’s bright red. 

He opens a door for you, and you flush because that’s not… monsters aren’t supposed to do that for humans! I mean, sure, your wrists are bound and there’s no way you’d be able to open the door by yourself but you think he wants you to get in and you’ve never ridden in anything but the back of a cargo truck full of other slaves and and and 

And he’s talking to you but you were freaking out too much to listen! You realize you are trembling and finally you hear an angry, exasperated sigh and you’re shoved into the vehicle. Hands that are… oddly hard and strong manipulate you into a sitting position, and you let them. It feels as though you are sitting on a towel. You agree this is a smart choice. You are dirty and stink of the slave pens, you really shouldn’t be allowed in a fancy car like this. 

It’s the softest towel you’ve ever touched. It’s even softer than the simple slave tunic you’re wearing. You feel really bad for getting it dirty, but it’s much better than getting the car dirty. 

You stare resolutely at your knees and try not to shake when the car starts moving.

You will be a good slave. 

You listen intently to the monsters arguing up front. Any information you get at this point will only help you be more obedient and helpful to them later, and if they are willing to say it in front of you it should be ok. 

“took you long enough,” your master, sitting in the passenger seat, says. His voice is deep and smooth.

“I AM NOT AT YOUR BECK AND CALL, SANS, I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAINING. YOU DID NOT TELL ME YOU WERE BUYING A HUMAN!” 

The driver is taller than your master, and his voice is similar, but not as deep and much louder. You’re pleased to know your master’s name. Master Sans. You decide you like it. 

“alphys and I burned out the last one. it was only 45g.”

Burned out could mean any number of things, you reassure yourself nervously. 

“THAT IS NO EXCUSE TO BRING A FILTHY ANIMAL INTO MY CAR.” 

You silently agree.

“i got a towel for it, didn’t i? i’m sure some air freshener will take care of it. there was no way i was going to touch it with my magic for a shortcut.” 

You don’t know what that means, you don’t know a lot about magic. You hope you being around doesn’t accidentally hurt your master’s magic. 

“I WOULD MAKE YOU CLEAN THE MESS YOURSELF, BUT I KNOW YOU WOULD ONLY MAKE IT WORSE, YOU SLOB.”

“c’mon, bro, give me a brake.”

“SANS.”

“i’m not trying to drive you to dis traction.” 

“SANS! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! CEASE YOUR INFERNAL PUNNING!” 

You can’t help but smile at the puns, you think that second one was a double! Your master is so clever. 

When the car goes eerily silent you know you have made a mistake. Your smile drops and you hunch in on yourself, you can feel your master’s eyes boring into you. You close your eyes and wait.

Humans aren’t supposed to be happy. Humans are supposed to be punished. 

The blow doesn’t come, but you know better than to assume that means you’re off the hook. Perhaps your master is one of those monsters who prefers to discipline their slaves in private. It would be terrible if you got blood all over the seats of this nice vehicle, after all. 

Eventually the car stops, and your master leads you outside by the chain. You stand obediently this time, not wanting to defile the car with your presence any longer. You realize, now that you are back outside in the heat, how cool the car was. You’ve heard of air-cooling technology, but no one would ever waste it on a human.

Your master leads you into a building, and you close your eyes in bliss at the feeling of cool air once again. You know that you are not wearing enough clothing for this to be comfortable, the tiles are icy on your bare feet, but for the moment you are the perfect temperature and you will enjoy it while it lasts. 

There is no way your master is a slaver. He is something so much better, though at the moment you’re not sure what that is. 

He leads you into a small room and the doors shut by themselves, as if by magic. You feel a lurching in your stomach and fall into the wall, something strange is going on and you don’t understand and you are trembling and breathing too fast and and

And your master is there. He grabs you by the arm and steadies you until you can stand up on your own. You desperately want to thank him, he is already the kindest master you have ever had, and so, eyes still trained obediently on the floor, you turn towards him and bow deeply. 

You hold it until your master says, “alright, human, that’s enough,” and you have just straightened into your usual submissive stance when there is a light, “ting,” sound and the magic doors open again. 

You are confused. The floor is a different color than it was before, you are sure of it. What is going on? 

You don’t have time to figure it out because your master yanks your chain a little roughly (rougher than he ever has, though it is a light tap in comparison to the slave market guards) and leads you out of the tiny room, down a hallway that didn’t used to exist, and into another small room. It’s a little bigger than the one you were just in, and you can see white, shiny equipment of some sort. 

Your master closes the door, and then he pulls your soul out. 

You very intentionally do not react. Even though every instinct you have is screaming at you in terror, all you do is tense and close your eyes. You are a good slave. You are obedient. Good slaves do not thrash like frightened animals just because their master pulls their soul out. Good slaves don’t fight back when their master pulls their soul out. 

Suddenly you feel heavy, so very heavy, you cannot stop yourself from sitting down on the ground even though that’s not something you’re supposed to do without permission, you only barely manage to keep from lying prone. Your very SOUL feels different, and you chance a glance up to see it is entirely blue, a dark blue, darker than your soul usually is, and there is no hint of the green cracks. 

You’re trembling and so very, very afraid when your master comes towards you again. He steps behind you, and you tense in preparation for punishment for falling down without permission, but instead he does something unexpected. 

He unlocks the chains binding your hands. 

You realize that it’s his magic making you feel so heavy, he must be holding you in place so you don’t bolt as soon as the chains come off. 

You gently rub your wrists, carefully tracing the chafed areas, then suck in a sharp breath when your master removes the heavy metal collar that has been left on your neck for months. You can feel some of your skin peel away with it, until with a sharp yank you’re entirely separated from it and you can’t fully bite back your pained cry. 

You close your eyes and dip your head down and hold very, very still. You know you’re broken, you know you’re damaged, and you are ashamed to be so disgusting in front of your master. 

Suddenly you are jerked to your feet, and there is a light but insistent tugging on your soul that you immediately follow into something that looks rather like a flat water trough. 

“stay, human,” you hear, and that is all the warning you get before you are blasted with cold water. 

Something small and green lands on the floor near your feet. “clean yourself,” your master orders, and you pick up what you realize with growing reverence is a real bar of soap. A quick glance tells you that there is now a shower curtain between you and him, and you realize you are showering. 

You are showering! He’s telling you to shower! Like the monsters do! 

You immediately do as he asks, nearly dropping the soap in your haste. You are thorough, reveling in the gradually-warming water that halts at the perfect temperature, brown rivulets trailing to the drain. You were disgusting, truly, and you are so relieved to be clean again. It’s worth every bit of stinging from your injuries. 

Gently, you remove your tunic, rinsing it under the water and doing your best to get the grime out. You are only partially successful, but it’s still much better than it was before. 

Eventually, the water shuts off, and you wait patiently for instructions. 

A bundle is thrust from behind the curtain, and you take it, realizing that it’s a towel and new clothing. Now you regret putting your tunic back on! You dry yourself with the towel and put on the loose pants and t-shirt, both a soft gray. 

At the tugging on your soul, you step out of the shower, and, now that you are on dry ground, put the socks on. You fold the towel and tunic and gently set them on the edge of the tub, then turn towards your master. Your head is bowed submissively, your hands obediently clasped behind your back as you were taught, but you can’t seem to get rid of the small smile on your face. 

You’re just too happy to be clean. You’re too happy to be wearing soft, warm clothing. You feel renewed, inside and out. 

He is the kindest master you’ve ever had. 

He steps forward, and you don’t flinch, you allow him to push your arms out of the way as he fits a harness around your shoulders and waist. Properly tethered, he steps away, and you barely have enough time to guide your released soul back inside you before he is tugging you forward again. 

Back down the hallway, back to the small room, where you know what to expect and don’t fall down. Out again, to another magically different hallway, to another room with tables cluttered with something you can’t quite make out, half of it behind glass. It is into this glass enclosure that your master leads you to, and you watch as he clasps your leash onto a convenient ring embedded in the wall. 

You remember yourself and hurriedly force your gaze down again, hoping your master didn’t notice. 

Oh, but what if he did? You have been such a bad slave, not listening, falling down, you are sure it is time for you to be punished, now that you are in private and on an easily cleanable surface. 

“on the table,” your master says, and you comply immediately, tucking your knees underneath you in proper submissive posture. Even though you are looking down, you are high up on the table, so you close your eyes, just in case. Not like them being open would help you, anyway… 

“here, eat this.” You open your eyes again to see… something, held out to you by your master. You bring your hands out from behind your back and reverently take the bag. You’ve seen trash that looks like this, sometimes, but it’s always empty by the time it gets anywhere near you. 

The bag says, “Popato chisps.” It is not grains soaked in hot water, the common fare of slaves. You aren’t entirely sure what to do with it, but your master ordered you to eat it and you trust him so you hesitantly pick up one of the small irregular disks and pop it in your mouth. 

You stare blankly for a moment, adjusting to the delicious, salty, wonderful flavor filling your mouth, before eagerly shoving another into your face. You try to slow yourself, try to have the willpower and control to savor this most precious treasure, but hunger has always been a constant fact of your existence and you learned quickly in the slave pens that the human who eats slowly is the human who doesn’t eat. 

You have neatly torn the bag open and are lapping at the crumbs when you freeze, an unfamiliar sound filling the room.

Laughter. Your master is laughing at you. 

Face burning, you smooth the bag and re-fold it, setting it gently down on the table next to you. You clasp your hands behind your back again, lower your head, and close your eyes. The perfect image of submissive obedience. 

You tense at the hand on your neck, but don’t flinch away. He is your master, he is allowed to touch you. You’re just a human, after all. 

The pain you expect doesn’t come, however, and you hastily glance down at your hands to see the marks on your wrists have healed as well. The scar tissue remains, as it probably always will, but the open sores are gone. 

Your eyes open wide in shock when you finally put two-and-two together. Monster food. He gave you monster food. You’ve heard, in hushed whispers, that it heals, that it can heal even mortal wounds if you get to it fast enough. 

It’s not something anyone would ever waste on the minor marks on a slave. 

You lean into his touch a little, a gentle trill escaping your lips before you can stop it. 

Master Sans is the best, kindest, most wonderful master. 

He pauses for a moment in inspecting you, and then slowly, carefully, runs his fingers through your short hair in a soothing motion.

Part of you desperately wants to jerk away. Part of you thinks this is a trick, a trap, that he is going to hurt you. Humans only touch each other if they’re family, or if one human wants to make a family with another. For an isolated human like you, who long ago lost anyone you knew before to the shifting mass of the slave market, a touch from another human would be a demand for something you could not give. 

Part of you wants to flinch and flee, like a frightened animal. 

But another part of you, a small, quiet part of you, a part of you you’d thought died long ago, whispers, _trust_. Master cleaned you. Master fed you. Master healed you. 

Master is kind to you. 

So after a frozen moment of indecision, you relax into his touch, allowing your perfectly obedient posture to fall away into something more comfortable, less focused on enduring and more focused on allowing. Responding to his gentle pressure and wordless command, you lie down on the table, suddenly feeling drowsy. 

You don’t mean to, but you drift off like that, a more peaceful rest you cannot remember. Safe, clean, and fed, protected and soothed by a kind master, you wonder if this is what Heaven feels like.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The skeleton brothers talk.

When you woke up, everyone was gone. 

That was. Not. Normal. At all. Humans weren’t supposed to be alone. 

You looked around. The enclosure was the same as when you’d come in, an odd bright rectangle set in the ceiling illuminating the small space. You could barely see out, but the fancy, ethereal glass structures outside were dimly lit from a few lights. Everything was much darker than it was when you first fell asleep. 

You knew better than to tug on your tether, but… you really weren’t supposed to be alone. Humans, it had been proven, were social creatures, and isolation could damage them. Humans were best housed in groups. 

Of course, this was all rhetoric to prove that humans like you were fine in cramped, overcrowded quarters, but still.

You’d never been so completely alone before. 

You were a little scared.

You squirmed uncomfortably. You also, er, needed to do something. Something important. Something you’d always done just after awakening. 

Something you didn’t feel comfortable doing in the pristine, sterile cleanliness of the lab. 

You examined your surroundings more closely. You were still on top of the stainless steel table, tethered to the wall in the small space. Your range of movement looked like it could extend to about half of the space. 

On the wall immediately to your right, there were cabinets hung on the wall, and a desk beneath them, all painted a professional white. From where you were sitting, you could see locks on the drawers and cabinets, presumably to keep you from rummaging around in them.

There was no toilet. 

You knew… despite all of the things you’d heard monsters say about, “filthy humans,” that you were not supposed to do… what you needed to, wherever. There was a protocol. There were special places designated for it.

You didn’t see any of those things in your room, much less within reach. Not even… not even a, a _bucket._

Well. You were patient. You could wait.

You settled yourself back on the table, lying on your side. You could wait. 

You thought you’d be fine, simply crossing your legs, but…

A familiar, uncontrollable wetness cooled your backside.

Oh _no_. 

. o . O . o .

“SAA **ANS!!!** ”

Uh oh. Sans knew that tone. His brother was on his _last nerve_ and the lightest touch could set him off. He obligingly teleported downstairs.

“sup boss.” Sans lounged against the doorframe, taking in his brother’s appearance. Semolina dusted the countertops, the remains of half a dozen decimated eggs were scattered around the kitchen, and some of the culinary carnage had even spattered against his brother’s apron. 

The Great Papyrus turned, too livid to even use his words, and pointed at the corner, where a solitary dirty sock slumped against the linoleum. 

Heh. He’d forgotten about that one. Sometimes he liked to pre-set pranks in the void to pop out at a random time, just to keep things interesting. Pranking was definitely the best perk of his ability to manipulate time and space. 

Judging by the state of the kitchen, though, not to mention the look on Pap’s face, now _really_ wasn’t the time. 

Sans had two choices. He could back down, apologize, play peacemaker and smooth things over. Or, he could tip his brother over into releasing all the explosive energy he had pent up in one fell swoop. 

Come on, what were little brothers for?

Affecting a lazy, mischievous grin, he said, “but picking it up would be sock-religious.” 

His brother’s reaction was _priceless_. First, his eye twitched. Then, he sucked in a deep breath, opened his mouth, and let loose an angry screech with such force and volume that Sans was forced to stagger back and sit in one of the kitchen chairs. 

“I HAVE TRIED TO BE A REASONABLE BROTHER,” the tirade began, “I HAVE TRIED MY UTMOST, AT EVERY TURN, TO DO WHAT IS BEST, NOT ONLY FOR ME, BUT FOR _YOU_ ” he jabs his finger in Sans’ direction, “YOU LAZY, DRUNKEN, UNRELIABLE INGRATE! I ASK SO LITTLE OF YOU! WHO WAS IT THAT GOT YOU YOUR JOB!? WHO IS IT THAT MAKES SURE YOU ARE FED!? WHO IS IT THAT KEEPS THE HOUSE IN ORDER!? ME! EVEN THOUGH I SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON MY _JOB_ , ON KEEPING THIS THRICE-FORSAKEN MONARCHY FROM FALLING TO CHAOS, I! STILL! DEAL! WITH! YOU!!! AND HOW DO YOU REPAY ME!!? HOW, SANS?”

“YOU HARDLY EVER SHOW UP TO WORK, AND STARS ONLY KNOW WHAT YOU DO THERE! AND WHEN YOU ARE OFF, INSTEAD OF DOING SOMETHING _PRODUCTIVE_ WITH YOUR FREE TIME, YOU SPEND IT DRINKING AND CAROUSING AT THAT INCENDIARY SALOON! AND WITH WHAT LITTLE TIME YOU ARE HOME!” The Great and Terrible Papyrus sucked in a deep breath, “YOU WALLOW IN YOUR FILTH, AND EMERGE ONLY TO PLAGUE MY LIFE WITH INCIDENTAL PUNS. WHY, SANS? I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND.”

Aw, geeze. There it was. His little brother was _lonely_. 

They both stewed in the silence for a moment. 

“feel better, bro?” Sans asked. 

Papyrus, arms crossed, looked away with a, “HMPH.” 

Seeing that he’d burned himself out, Sans got up from his chair and walked close, but not too close, to his bro. He grabbed a rag and started mopping at one of the half-dried eggs crusted to the countertop.

“so what was the bit about the monarchy falling into chaos about? that’s new.” Sans liked to provoke his brother into regular screaming matches once or twice a month. Papyrus was such a high-energy monster that he needed the release every once in awhile. 

“THAT IS CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.” Papyrus deflected, giving Sans’ dirty rag a scornful glance before grabbing the roll of paper towels. 

Sans scrubbed harder at the egg, careful to keep his tone light as he responded, “i’ve got level 5 clearance now, remember? cause of the _job._ ” He tried not to spit it out like a curse, he really did, but his brother knew him well.

“I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT, BUT THERE WAS NO OTHER OPTION. WITHOUT IT, YOU’D BE DUST.”

Sans winced at the blunt statement, but it was true. In the world they lived in, a monster with only 1 HP either made themselves invaluable to a stronger monster, or became LV fodder. Papyrus had saved his life on more than one occasion, and this was no different. They both knew it.

Didn’t mean he had to _like_ it, though. 

“i know. thanks.” His tone listless, he turned the subject back. “so, monarchy falling into chaos. didn’t take you for such a patriot, bro.” 

“IT IS NOT THAT. I THINK… I THINK THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ASGORE.”

Sans stopped rubbing at the counter. Shit. _Shit._ He wasn’t supposed to _know_. He wasn’t supposed to be _involved_. 

“what do you mean?”

“I WAS GUARDING HIM TODAY, LIKE ALWAYS. UNDYNE WAS AT THE FRONT ENTRANCE, AND I WAS AT THE BACK, AT THE POST THAT ALLOWS ME TO SEE INSIDE THE THRONE ROOM AS WELL AS THE HALLWAY.” 

“THERE WAS A MOMENT, TODAY, WHERE I THINK HE TRIED TO STAND UP, AND HE JUST… COULDN’T. HIS ARMS STRAINED AGAINST THE SIDES OF THE THRONE, AND IT TOOK HIM THREE FULL MINUTES JUST TO GET TO HIS FEET. HE WAS PANTING LIKE HE’D JUST GONE A ROUND IN THE SAND.” 

“SANS? SANS!?”

His eyelights returned, and he didn’t protest when Papyrus took the rag from his fingers and made quick work of the rest of the egg spatter. Papyrus guided him to the couch with a surprisingly gentle grip and sat him down. 

Papyrus eyed him searchingly, then sat down next to him. “YOU ALREADY KNOW, DON’T YOU? YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?” 

“heh,” Sans was coming back, “that’s classified egg-formation.” 

Papyrus’ expression hardened. “SANS.” 

“Yolk don’t need to know.”

“SANS, THIS IS A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY. YES. I DO.” 

Sans sighed. He’d been dreading this moment, but… he knew a secret like this couldn’t be kept forever. He’s glad it was Papyrus, but if even his oblivious brother had noticed… they didn’t have much time. 

“you know my boss, right? tall guy, works on the core?”

“YOU’VE MENTIONED HIM, YES. MANY TIMES. USUALLY WHILE DRUNK. SOMEHOW I DON’T THINK HIS GIVEN NAME IS ACTUALLY WEASEL-DICK.” 

Sans outright laughed at that. “yep, that’s him. weasel-dick gaster, head royal scientist.”

“SANS, NO.”

“sans yes!”

Papyrus groaned, hand on his face, as he waited for his brother’s chuckles to die down. When he had finally composed himself, Papyrus pressed, “WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?”

Sans sobered. “he knows more about engineering than gramary, and out of everyone in the lab, i’m the best with magic. so when a special project was passed down from on high, it was passed to me. weasel-dick still takes credit for all my work, but all he really does is check in once in awhile. i’ve been flying mostly solo on this project while he and alph are off fuckin’ with the core.”

“monsters have been falling down. a _lot_ of monsters, way more than usual, and we don’t know why. their souls fade, stop shining, turn grey, they fall down… and they dust. at first it was just transients, you know? homeless, immigrants, monsters no one cares about. it’s been going on for awhile, but only recently has it started to affect other monsters. there’s nothing else wrong with them, no way to know who it’s gonna hit, and it’s fuckin’ _irreversible_ , as far as i can tell.”

Papyrus put two-and-two together, “ASGORE HAS IT.”

“bingo.” 

“IS THAT WHY YOU WANTED THAT PATHETIC HUMAN?”

“yeah. i mean, there’s almost no overlap between human and monster souls, but i haven’t tried it yet and it can’t hurt, can it? its soul is turning grey, just like asgore’s, and humans don’t really fall down the same way monsters do. maybe there’s something in their souls that’s different, something we can extract and use to keep a monster alive.”

The rest went unspoken between them. 

_”i’m running out of options.”_

_“i’m desperate.”_

“I WILL DO WHAT I CAN TO KEEP THIS QUIET.” Papyrus finally, said, returning to the kitchen to finish his handmade noodle paste. 

Sans continued to sit and worry until the calming sounds of Papyrus in the kitchen lulled him to sleep. 

. o . O . o .

You had settled into a fitful doze. 

You woke to the sensation of crawling. 

Sleepily you brushed at it, tired mind already returning to sleep. 

The crawling returned. 

You brushed it again, and a third time, but when the sensation persisted you finally sat up to survey what was on you.

And promptly screamed. 

Insects. Insects _everywhere._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a lot of people wanted this to continue. Like, _a lot_. 
> 
> Special thanks to EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO COMMENTED ON CHAPTER ONE OMG YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!
> 
> Special thanks to [TK](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ToumeiKyoudai/pseuds/ToumeiKyoudai) for the pun, "Picking it up would be sock-religious." I was really stuck on a pun there, this chapter would not be here without it. (Also I highly recommend those fics go they will brighten your day.) 
> 
> Special thanks to Darlene the yellow jacket. I was napping peacefully on the front porch, and she somehow managed to get lost in my shorts. I got stung. I made sure she got back to her hive ok, and my newfound fear of insects crawling on me while I sleep has spawned a new story arc! Yay!

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted angst and ended up with fluff, what the heck. 
> 
> To all my friends who mostly see me in the comment sections of your fics, where I lurk at all times, you are always welcome to join me on my [tumblr](http://moss-flowers-trees.tumblr.com/).


End file.
